Meghalaya, India: Where women rule, and men are suffragettes

In the small hilly Indian state of Meghalaya, a matrilineal system operates with property names and wealth passing from mother to daughter rather than father to son - but some men are campaigning for change.

I am sitting across a table from Keith Pariat, President of Syngkhong-Rympei-Thymmai, Meghalaya's very own men's rights movement.

He is quick to assure me that he and his colleagues "do not want to bring women down," as he puts it. "We just want to bring the men up to where the women are."

Mr Pariat, who ignored age-old customs by taking his father's surname is adamant that matriliny is breeding generations of Khasi men who fall short of their inherent potential, citing alcoholism and drug abuse among its negative side-effects.

"If you want to know how much the Khasis favour women just take a trip to the labour ward at the hospital," he says.

"If it's a girl, there will be great cheers from the family outside. If it's a boy, you will hear them mutter politely that, 'Whatever God gives us is quite all right.'"

BBC.co.uk, 19 january 2012